Raven Tide

2: Kaiju (Chyani)

"Ow!" I clutched my hand to my head.

I was on the floor in a black room lit up from the floor with soft orange lights having just struck my head on a metal wall. Out of nowhere, the room jerked and knocked me up in the air.

"What the hell is happening?"

I stood up and scanned the room. No sign of the creature, not that I had any desire to see it.

Strange...

I wasn't in a cell, or a med-lab, or even restrained from moving, and the door was wide open. Even weirder, the film and scratches I left on my eyes were no longer present.

Contrary to the harsh black walls, the room smelled light and freshly disinfected, like a handful of antibacterial soap suds tickling my nose.

My feet and legs were bandaged, but I didn't feel any pain.

The room banked sharply to the right again, and I caught myself on a giant bed. From the small indention of wrinkles, this is where I had been sleeping.

BOOM!

I yelped and curled to the floor. There weren't any windows, but I was certain something big was banging on the outside of the craft overhead.

There was also a tray with a smattering of stray medical supplies sprawled across the floor, along with an empty syringe rolling back and forth.

I touched the top of my shoulder. No bruise but the recollection of the violation was unsettling.

"Two options, Chyani," I grit my teeth while staring at the door. "No one ever made things better by sitting alone in the dark."

The hallway was empty, and nothing prevented me from wandering the ship. There was only a faint grunting sound echoing from the end of the corridor. Low, angry, and mingled with hissing.

"It kept you alive," I sucked in a long breath through my nose. "Though probably only to experiment on or to profit from selling me into intergalactic slavery..."

I peeked in at what was clearly the bridge of the alien's ship. Everything was black and there was a large horizontal black chair in the center with an array of holo controls hovering in the air ... and him seated at the helm.

The large holo screen in front of us displayed various external views of the alien's spacecraft.

We were under attack by some kind of giant demented space moth with a dozen legs and large yellow wings littered with irregularly shaped holes.

"Holy shit!" I smacked my hands over my mouth, realizing I'd spoken out loud.

The alien man paid me no attention and continued navigating his ship out of the moth's grasp.

The room tilted again and from the viewscreen; he was looping the ship into a steep dive between a snarl of moth legs.

"Cre-oshi'vohx!" He shouted and steered the ship in a sharp winding arch while letting loose a barrage of white-hot lasers into the creature's side.

I lost my footing and couldn't stop from sliding into the back of his chair.

The big alien roared and punched his fist into a red circle floating by his side. Then he got up and came at me.

"I didn't mean-" I cringed and tried to make myself small.

He grabbed my arm and threw me over his shoulder, then kicked the wall to summon a small stool from the floor.

"Re'aat!" He threw me on the chair and promptly buckled me in with a metal harness, unhinging from out of nowhere.

Then he returned to his chair and ignored me and my bruised rear.